Important Things To Remember as You Head to the S.B.C or M.B.C. Annual Meetings

By Gregg Boll, Director of Missions

1. Remember, there is no “them and us” at our annual meeting; there is only us. Don’t allow yourself to get caught up in a factional, party spirit. I know that social media continually fuels this incessant spirit of division, mistrust, and disdain for other factions within the SBC who don’t hold to the views of “my group”. And while spirited debate over significant theological and ideological issues is healthy, there comes a time when that conversation crosses a line and damages gospel partnerships and relationships, i.e., our cooperative way of doing missions together. I find it instructive and significant that Paul in both of his letters to Timothy warns him about the danger of disputing over “words” which is useless and leads to the ruin of the listeners….and which causes “envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions” (I Tim. 6:4, II Tim. 2:14). There aren’t many of those kinds of folks in SBC life, but there are a few and they show up at our annual meeting most every year with a narrow agenda that doesn’t consider the larger mission. Keep the big picture in mind as you listen to people speak to both sides of an issue before a vote. Rather than simply listening for how their position is in error and differs from your own, really seek to understand their point of view. Remember, you are listening to a brother or sister in Christ you’ll spend eternity with. Then, vote according to your conscience and know you’ve done your duty as a messenger.
2. Don’t expect perfection and absolute doctrinal alignment from your chosen faith family, Southern Baptists. The reason one of our core values is guarding the autonomy of the local church is that it’s our way of acknowledging that we probably won’t achieve absolute doctrinal agreement and uniformity of practice on this side of heaven. But the inability to achieve complete doctrinal agreement shouldn’t keep us from partnering on the most important thing we do agree on, that Jesus is Lord and His gospel should be shared with every person. If your goal is to achieve complete doctrinal agreement on every non-essential issue, you will soon grow frustrated with the S.B.C. Grant fellow messengers and denominational leaders much grace. We, like every faith family, have our issues, but year after year, I witness godly men and women, denominational leaders, and agency heads faithfully stewarding their respective ministries. There are systems of accountability in place, and when messengers don’t feel those are working adequately, you can count on several messengers recommending positive action from the floor. We still have a bottom-up polity in which denominational agencies and leaders are accountable to the churches and messengers of the convention. There are several great faith groups your church could affiliate with. From the beginning of my ministry there were four core values which initially drew me and continued to hold me in the Southern Baptist family; (1) Keeping the gospel and the great commission the main focus, (2) an unswerving commitment to biblical faithfulness (inerrancy) , (3) the Cooperative Program as our primary way of carrying out the Great Commission and the (4) bottom-up polity which preserves local church autonomy with an emphasis on the priesthood of all believers. These tenets have allowed nearly 48,000 SBC churches to voluntarily partner, despite their disagreements over tertiary issues of doctrine or practice. These have been our core values since our founding. I have observed over the years that motions and actions that seem to infringe upon any of the above values have not been well received by messengers, even if they agreed with them in principle. I’ll stick my neck out there and state that if the constitutional amendment Dr. Mohler is presenting this year which seeks to limit the senior pastor position to men only doesn’t pass, it won’t be because a majority of all S.B.C. churches and pastors aren’t complementarian, which most of us are, (see survey – https://bit.ly/4vHK9Zn) but because the messengers perceive it as establishing a top-down denominational hierarchy that infringes upon local church autonomy, and is redundant because the issue is adequately addressed in our confession, The Baptist Faith and Message. I have been a little surprised by the extensive media campaign concerning women pastors in the months leading up to this year’s annual meeting. I have been in S.B.C. life since 1980 and an ordained pastor since 1985. Perhaps, women seeking elder/pastor positions are growing elsewhere across the S.B.C., but I have never met an S.B.C. woman senior pastor; not once. I fully understand the cultural milieu in America, which has created a desire for greater clarity on gender and roles within the church, i.e., who can be a pastor or elder. Mark me as one of those who believe our confession of faith clearly addresses this issue and that we have a credentials system in place at the state and local levels to address it in the rare event it arises.
3. Which brings me to my final point: Vote your conscience on each motion, but don’t get too emotionally invested in “winning” or “losing”. There are no losers or winners unless we think there are. Paul certainly rebuked any party spirit among God’s people in his first letter to the Corinthians. There can even be a factious spirit in the person’s heart who claims they are “of Christ”. Let that truth sink in. The annual meeting is simply our spiritual family doing our best to be faithful to our Lord and His eternal, infallible Word. We’ve no doubt got it wrong a few times, but more times than not, we’ve got it right as messengers throughout the years. I trust God’s sovereignty enough to accept the outcome of a particular vote or decision by the assembled messengers, even if it wasn’t my preferred outcome. True humility reminds us that, as convinced and certain of our “rightness” on a particular issue, we could be wrong, right, or just wrong about the best way to address it as a Convention of churches. At the end of the day, remember to love and value deeply every person assembled in that place. Jesus said that it is our love for one another that causes the lost world to take notice and recognize that we are His disciples, not how rightly we believe in the issues.

Whether it is the SBC annual meeting or the annual state Convention, enjoy the experience. Marvel at the awesomeness of our Lord and the beauty and diversity of His assembled body of messengers. As my pastor pointed out, we have an exclusive gospel, but it is the most inclusive exclusivity of any world religion, with the church being composed of people from every nation, tongue, and tribe. No other world religion is as ethnically diverse as Christianity. Be grateful for the miracle of God’s grace that has saved so many and brought them together for such a grand, common mission. Don’t get overly preoccupied with the process and procedures that you forget to fully appreciate the worldwide scope of the Kingdom work we are doing together in and for the name that is above every Name, the Name of Jesus. Look around the convention floor and recognize that you are not alone in this great work He has called you to: the Lord has reserved for Himself far more than 7000 faithful men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.